G8 Policy Paper May 2011

Please address general

comments and questions to: Recommendations for the
G8 Deauville Summit
John Ruthrauff
Director of International
Advocacy
InterAction
jruthrauff@interaction.org
202.552.6523
Summary of Recommendations
Sue Pleming
InterAction’s G8/G20 Task Force urges G8 leaders to implement the following recommenda-
Senior Director of
Communications tions at the May 26-27 summit in Deauville, France. As the largest association of U.S.-based,
InterAction non-profit organizations, InterAction and its members deal daily with the impact of global
spleming@interaction.org poverty. The current financial crisis has had a serious impact on commitments made by G8
202.341.3814
members to developing nations. Through strong actions and a commitment to greater trans-
parency, the G8 should leverage good governance efforts by its partners and remove impedi-
Comments and questions on
ments to economic growth. In a bid to maximize the outcomes of the Deauville summit, the
specific policy sections should following steps should be taken:
be addressed to the following
individuals: Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition
Accountability 1. Fully fund the L’Aquila $22 billion pledge.
Rob Lovelace 2. Rebalance donor funds to improve nutrition and reach small-scale producers.
Senior Fellow 3. Integrate resilience to climate change and civil society partnerships into food security
Trade Union Sustainability
Development Unit
plans.
Lovelace.RE@gmail.com
Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH)
Food Security, Agriculture
and Nutrition 1. Implement MNCH commitments made under the 2010 Muskoka Initiative and ensure
Steven Myers much needed international engagement, coordination, accountability and investment
Leland Hunger Fellow, to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 through active support of the UN
Public Policy & Advocacy
Save the Children
Secretary-General’s Global Strategy on Women’s and Children’s Health.
smyers@savechildren.org 2. Coordinate donor funding to support integration of services within the health and other
development sectors, and ensure equitable access to health services across the full con-
Maternal, Newborn and
Child Health
tinuum of care.
Kimberly Sutton
Policy Manager Accountability
Government Relations
1. Direct the G8 Accountability Working Group (AWG) to seek outside input to inform its
Global Health Council
ksutton@globalhealth.org reporting.
2. When the AWG establishes a new expert group, make public its terms of reference and
the names and affiliations of all of the experts; then update the information in a timely
www.InterAction.org and transparent fashion.
1400 16th Street, NW 3. Require that the AWG conduct a comprehensive evaluation of all G8 commitments,
Suite 210 make it publicly available 30 days before each summit and hold a public comment period.
Washington, DC 20036 4. Publish the report schedule (with probable topics) through 2015.
202.667.8227
 Detailed Recommendations
Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition
G8 leaders created the 2009 L’Aquila Global Food Security
Initiative and pledged to invest $22 billion over 3 years in
food security, to encourage rural development in poor coun-
tries, and create sustainable solutions for about 1 billion hun-
gry people worldwide. The leaders also decided to promote
new investments and improved efficiency of aid programs
and regional coordination by involving all partners. This
initiative still lacks a clear action plan, transparent timeline
for fund delivery or accountability framework. To this end,
we urge the G8 to:
1. Fully fund the L’Aquila $22 billion pledge.
Establish a robust accountability framework requiring
nations to honor these commitments, including to the
Global Agriculture and Food Security Program. This
should include annual reporting on country alloca-
tions; types of interventions, including assistance for
small-scale producers; results indicators, including
child stunting and wasting; and donor disbursements
against pledges. We applaud the United States govern-
ment for its progress toward these accountability and
transparency measures. The L’Aquila commitments
should be supported by strengthening the U.N.-based
Committee on World Food Security.
2. Rebalance donor funds to improve nutrition
and reach small-scale producers. We applaud
the 2010 Muskoka G8 focus on reduced child and
maternal malnutrition as a primary outcome of the
Food Security Initiative. However, the Muskoka
Accountability Report indicates that G8 pledges for
nutrition are less than 3 percent ($426 million) of the
bilateral total. Over 50 percent ($9 billion) is pledged
for agricultural, agro-industries, forestry and fishing.
To ensure that pledges translate into tangible results
for the nearly 1 billion hungry people worldwide, G8
leaders must rebalance donor funds to improve nutri-
tion and reach small-scale producers. We strongly
encourage G8 nations to participate in and support
the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement to raise
the priority of direct nutrition interventions and
nutrition-sensitive development in nations affected by
high rates of child malnutrition.
3. Integrate resilience to climate change and civil
society partnerships into food security plans
through impact and risk analysis, vulnerability assess-
ments to identify and target the most vulnerable
populations and help them develop increased adap-
2
tive capacity. Ensure that civil society, including local
and non-governmental organizations and vulnerable
populations and communities, are full partners in
food security planning and program implementation,
monitoring and evaluation. Climate change threat-
ens to reduce agricultural productivity by half in parts
of sub-Saharan Africa1 and cause yield declines and
price increases for rice, wheat, maize and soybeans,
leading to an increase in child malnutrition by 20
percent by 2050 relative to a world with no climate
change2. Identifying the most vulnerable populations
and integrating risk and impact analyses ensure that
food security approaches are responsive to a changing
climate and does not lead to increased vulnerability to
climate change. Participation of civil society and vul-
nerable populations is critical to ensure that programs
incorporate local knowledge and respond to the needs
of the most vulnerable populations.
Maternal, Newborn and Child Health
We welcome the G8’s recognition of unacceptably slow
progress toward achieving Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) 4 and 53 and the group’s decision to prioritize
maternal and child health by launching the Muskoka Initia-
tive. The Muskoka Initiative and President Barack Obama’s
Global Health Initiative (GHI) offer a critical opportunity to
galvanize international action to expand existing successes and
accelerate progress in improving maternal, newborn and child
health (MNCH). To this end, we urge G8 leaders to take the
following steps.
1. Implement the MNCH commitments and support
MDGs 4 and 5 made under the 2010 Muskoka Initia-
tive. Ensure international engagement, coordination,
accountability and investment to achieve MDGs 4 and
5 through support of the UN Secretary-General’s Global
Strategy on Women’s and Children’s Health.
2. Integrate health services. Coordinate donor fund-
ing to support integration of services within the health
and other development sectors and ensure equitable
access to health services across the full continuum of
care.
Both of these sets of actions should be reinforced by contin-
ued G8-civil society dialogue and periodic meetings of G8
Health/Development Ministers.
Background. The G8 Muskoka Initiative committed its
members to support significant progress in developing coun-
tries with high rates of maternal and under-five child mortal-
ity and an unmet need for family planning. This includes a
focus on comprehensive, high impact and integrated inter-
ventions at the community level, across the continuum of
care.4 The initiative has added value in that a number of other
donors have also endorsed it including: the governments of
Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Republic
of Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the
McCall McBain Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the
Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations Foundation.
It has also garnered endorsements from the group of eight
international agencies in the health sector (the World Health
Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria, UNICEF, the World Bank, the UNFPA (the
UN Population Fund), UNAIDS and GAVI (the Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations)), the heads of the
schools of public health of 22 universities in the United States
and the Micronutrient Initiative based in Canada.
We welcome the G8’s commitment under the Muskoka
Initiative to mobilize an additional $5-10 billion of additional
resources over the next five years for MNCH funding from
G8 countries and other partners. The G8 must fund fully its
share of resources for strategies and programs to accelerate
the reduction of maternal, newborn, and child mortality and
morbidity in developing countries. The U.S. must meet its
existing $1.346 billion commitment and leverage fulfillment
of this pledge to influence other G8 countries and partners to
make and deliver on robust funding commitments.
We also welcome the inclusion of strong integration
language in the Muskoka Initiative and its alignment with
the principles of the GHI. A strategy to address health issues
globally must recognize the inextricable linkages between
maternal, reproductive, newborn and child health and devel-
opment areas. As the Muskoka Initiative states, its impact
goes beyond MDG 4 and 5: It is related to elements of suc-
cess across all the MDGs.
Accountability
The Deauville Accountability Report is a step towards
improved accountability. But the report is disappointing in
that it presents disbursements in “current dollars” (not taking
into account inflation) with only a few references to “con-
stant dollars”. The report reaffirms its adherence to the Paris
Declaration’s Aid Effectiveness Principles. Unfortunately
the “specific recommendations” are general statements to
“improve transparency”, “build common sets … of perfor-
mance criteria”, “mapping of vertical funds and multilateral
donors”, and pilot evaluations. The recommendations pro-
pose no deadlines nor do they give implementation plans.
We urge the G8 to adopt the following recommendations
to build on progress towards fully implementing the�������ir com-
mitments. At the Deauville summit, we call on G8 leaders
to articulate support for greater civil society engagement year
round, which is in the interest of all concerned—particularly
those whose urgent needs have called us all to action.
To that end, the G8’s Accountability Working Group
(AWG) and any other sector- or issue-specific groups it
establishes, should function in accordance with the following
principles:
1. Inputs. G8 members should direct the AWG to
receive input from other international organizations
(e.g., the U.N., specialized agencies, the OECD
Development Assistance Committee and the African
Union), recipient governments and a broad spectrum
of civil society to inform their reporting.
2. Terms of Reference. The AWG should publicly
release the terms of reference for each expert group and
the names and affiliation of all experts as soon as they
are identified. Meeting schedules for such groups and a
detailed agenda should be publicly available at least 20
days before any meeting.
3. Comprehensive Evaluation. The AWG should
conduct a comprehensive evaluation and publish G8
commitments consistent with the Muskoka Account-
ability Report’s criteria for commitments.
4. Report Release. Make public the AWG annual
report 30 days before the summit and release a sched-
ule of future reports, with provisional topics, through
2015. This should apply to both years in which the
report is thematic (as it is this year) and years when it
is comprehensive in scope.
Background. We welcome the AWG and its duty to prepare
reports. The suggestion to alternate between sector-specific
or thematic reports one year—such as the 2011 focus on
food security and health commitments—and more compre-
hensive reviews the next year is reasonable. The AWG should
also look to civil society and recipients for full participation
in the evaluations.
As AWG’s members have noted, better-crafted commit-
ments are needed to improve the G8’s ability to measure
progress. We support the recommendations to do so by:
(1) identifying clearly defined, time-bound objectives, that
measure progress against indicators, and are tied to results-
oriented outcome targets; (2) establishing baselines for
financial commitments and differentiating between new and
old funding; and (3) designating how and when the G8 will
report on each commitment.
3
 The Muskoka Report calls for the exemption of “aspira- Maternal, Newborn and Child Health
tional commitments” from the accountability process. We CARE
disagree with that approach. All G8 commitments—and Family Care International
especially aspirational ones—should influence the global pol- Global Health Council
icy agenda, set G8 priorities and catalyze action that should InterAction
be tracked. International Medical Corps
Among otherwise positive signs, three impediments cast Management Sciences for Health
doubt on the G8’s commitment to clear and transparent Oxfam America
monitoring and reporting: 1) the G8 accountability report- PATH
ing process is not transparent. 2) there are no indications of Population Action International
the G8’s willingness to involve civil society in monitoring Save the Children
and reporting efforts, despite the fact that many G8 states
do so in their own development assistance programs. 3) civil
society’s access to the G8 summit is restricted. End Notes
The G8 regularly convenes specialized groups of experts
to consider issues in-depth. These issue-oriented groups 1 Boko, M., I. Niang, A. Nyong, C. Vogel, A. Githeko, M. Medany, B.
Osman-Elasha, R. Tabo and P. Yanda, 2007:Africa. Climate Change
should function in a transparent fashion. As key implement-
2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working
ers of the G8’s initiatives, we consider expert groups essential Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
actors in gathering and receiving information from interna- Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J.
tional organizations, governments and civil society to inform van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press,
G8 decision-making. Cambridge UK, 433-467.

2 Nelson, G.C., Mark W. Rosegrant, Jawoo Koo, Richard Robertson,

Timothy Sulser, Tingiu Zhu, Claudia Ringler, Siwa Msangi, Amanda
Many organizations contributed to one or more recommenda- Palazzo, Miroslav Batka, Marilia Magalhaes, Rowena Valmonte-San-
tions in this policy statement. While the statement is not designed tos, Mandy Ewing and David Lee, October 2009. “Climate Change:
to be a consensus position of the contributors, it has been endorsed Impact on Agriculture and Costs of Adaptation.” International Food
Policy Research Institute.
by InterAction’s leadership.
3 MDG 4 aims to “reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the
Accountability under-five mortality rate” and MDG 5 aims to “reduce by three quar-
ActionAid USA ters the maternal mortality ratio” and “achieve universal access to
Bread for the World reproductive health”

Global Health Council 4 This is described in the Consensus for Maternal, Newborn and Child
InterAction Health statement.
Management Sciences for Health
Oxfam America
Save the Children
Trade Union Sustainability Development Unit

Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition

ActionAid USA
Bread for the World
CARE
PATH
InterAction
International Medical Corps
Oxfam America
Save the Children